Avian influenza killed a 12-year-old girl in Turkey, the government said today. Israel said tests on what would have been its first human case of bird flu were negative. The girl died yesterday and her brother was in a critical condition, Turkey's Health Ministry said. There have been 20 confirmed human cases of bird flu in Turkey, four of which resulted in death, a spokesman for the Ankara-based Ministry said in a telephone interview today. The United Nations last week said the flu may become endemic in birds in Turkey and pose a risk to neighboring countries. The spread of the disease increases the risk that the virus will mutate into a form that people can pass to one another, causing a deadly pandemic. A sick man who lives in a village east of Jerusalem was tested for bird flu after being admitted to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital last night. ... http://quote.bloomberg.com

Powerful members of the U.N. Security Council agreed Monday that Iran must fully suspend its nuclear program, Britain's Foreign Office said following a meeting aimed at forging a common response to Tehran's decision to resume uranium enrichment activities. Diplomats also announced plans to call for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency board of directors on Feb. 2-3 to discuss what action to take against Tehran for removing some U.N. seals from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz last week. The Foreign Office said all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China, and Germany had shown "serious concern over Iranian moves to restart uranium enrichment activities." ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/16/world/main1210064.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=World_1210064

A United Nations agency warned today that bird flu may already have spread to Turkey's neighbouring countries and urged improved poultry surveillance across the Middle East.Although the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) admitted it had no confirmation that the disease had spread outside Turkey, it told Armenia, Iran, Iraq and Syria to step up early warning procedures.Meanwhile, the Greek health minister, Nikitas Kaklamanis, warned its citizens not to visit Turkey, while officials in Indonesia confirmed that a 13-year-old girl had died from the disease, the 13th victim in the country. Samuel Jutzi, director of the FAO's animal production and health division, said there was no reason to believe that the virus "has not already passed the borders of eastern Turkey"....http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1687701,00.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Iran has not excluded the possibility of conducting its uranium enrichment in Russia -- a proposal that could be a way out of escalating tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Putin, speaking after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, said "one of the main problems is the enrichment of uranium. "We proposed to our Iranian partners to set up a joint enrichment venture on Russian territory. We have heard various opinions from our Iranian partners on that issue. One of them has come from the Foreign Ministry -- our partners told us they did not exclude the implementation of our proposal." ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10836280/from/RSS/

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, is unfit to do his military service, NTV television quoted a military hospital as saying on Monday, days after he was freed from an Istanbul jail.The decision leaves Agca at liberty, pending an appeal from the Justice Ministry against his early release from prison. "Mehmet Ali Agca is a free person and he can go anywhere he wants," Agca's lawyer Mustafa Demirbag told reporters. Turkey's army had wanted Agca, 48, to do his missed military service, which is a legal obligation for all Turkish men. His lawyers argued he was not well enough to do a stint in the army. Agca served 19 years in an Italian jail for trying to kill the Pope before being pardoned at the Pontiff's behest in 2000. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a separate sentence for the murder of a Turkish newspaper editor and for robbery. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1510470

Turkey said on Monday a fourth person had died of avian flu as authorities slaughtered tens of thousands of birds to try to contain the outbreak. Indonesia announced a 13-year-old girl had also died at the weekend of the H5N1 virus, while two of her siblings were ill. Indonesia has previously reported 12 deaths from bird flu.Human victims had been confined to East Asia until this month, when three infected children from the same family died in eastern Turkey, showing the deadly H5N1 strain had reached the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East."The test results of Fatma Ozcan who died yesterday (Sunday) were found to be positive," the Health Ministry's bird flu coordination center said in a statement carried by state-run news agency Anatolian.The girl, believed to be in her teens, came from the small town of Dogubayazit, home to the three other children who died....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060116/ts_nm/birdflu_dc